


nothing in the world so well as you

by CrimsonPetrichor, goddamnitfrank



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-01
Updated: 2017-08-20
Packaged: 2018-12-09 15:59:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11672391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrimsonPetrichor/pseuds/CrimsonPetrichor, https://archiveofourown.org/users/goddamnitfrank/pseuds/goddamnitfrank
Summary: A collection of ficlets about Peter and Michelle and the tiny universe that exists around them, each inspired by a lyrical prompt.





	1. i'm so glad you made it

**Author's Note:**

> So [goddamnitfrank](http://archiveofourown.org/users/goddamnitfrank/pseuds/goddamnitfrank) and I ([CrimsonPetrichor](http://archiveofourown.org/users/CrimsonPetrichor/pseuds/CrimsonPetrichor)) sold our souls to this movie, and then we started tossing fic ideas back and forth, and before we knew it, we decided that we'd challenge ourselves to write a fic collection where we each chose a song that the other person would have to use to inspire a fic. 
> 
> We've had a blast writing them, and we hope you enjoy reading them!

_ "I don't mean to be a lot." - SZA, 'Drew Barrymore' _

* * *

 

The AC keeps making this weird wheezing noise.

There are more important things happening around MJ, but she can’t ignore it. A bike just went by on the street and rang its bell three times, one after the other. Someone is vacuuming in the apartment upstairs. The mug that May had to set down because her hands were shaking too much is a navy blue Midtown High one. And the AC keeps making this weird wheezing noise.

She hears May take in another shuddering breath and looks around for something else to catalogue: the fridge, maybe, with three magnets and a foam-framed picture of little Peter in a Captain America costume. Or maybe the DVD shelf under the TV, with its incomprehensible-to-everyone-but-the-Parkers organizational system.

Peter is talking now, low and in May’s ear as he hugs her tightly. She nods every so often, squeezing her eyes shut, and it occurs to MJ that this is probably the hardest thing that May has ever had to do.

Ned is holding his arms around himself, looking on in total, uncharacteristic silence. MJ places what she hopes is a comforting hand on his shoulder, and it seems to do the trick as he covers it with his own.

Then Peter turns away from his aunt to face Ned with red-rimmed eyes, and MJ pulls her hand away just before they hug. She feels like an intruder, an upstart muscling in on the Parkers’ pain. Of course she cares about Peter, and of course she wants him safe, but in the face of Ned and May’s love for him, she can't help but think she really doesn't have that big a claim on Peter Parker.

It’s not like she’s his girlfriend, or even his best friend, really, though he might be hers. She’s just a friend, and she’s not jeopardizing that role now by opening her mouth and letting slip all the things she's been bottling up. Her whole life, MJ has had a bad habit of being too much: too sharp, too smart, too observant. She thinks she might love people that way, too, and today is not the day to find out.

So she bites it back and catalogues the room instead, counts pillows and things on the bookcase to feel like she’s doing something. It won't matter, if Peter comes back, what the apartment sounded like or how his green hoodie was tossed over the arm of the couch. But if he doesn't- if he can't, then MJ suspects that she will want to crawl back into this moment and take shelter there. It's a precautionary measure, really, and if it means that she can look somewhere other than at Peter, well, that’s just lucky for her.

There’s no pretending that she doesn’t know what’s happening here, even if she does manage to narrow her focus down to a single whorl in the wood on the floorboard directly in front of her. It’s not like she can ignore the way that her stomach is twisting itself into knots, the way that her hands are itching to reach out to Peter. She can’t block out the sound of Ned saying that when Peter comes back, they’re finally going to build that Lego model of Minas Tirith that he’s had his eye on for months. She thinks then that there’s maybe no one in this world who believes in Spider-Man more than Ned, not even Peter himself.

Before, she might’ve wondered what it would be like, to have a friend who chose to have unconditional faith in you, but now she knows. She knows it’s more potent than any of your heroes cheering you on, that it carries more weight than any furiously whispered pep talk you give yourself in the mirror. She doesn’t need to look at Peter to know that Ned’s words have made him stand a little taller, but she does anyway.

May is in front of him again, holding his face between her hands as she looks at him, and somehow MJ just knows that May is seeing this Peter and baby Peter and the beaming little kid from the picture on the fridge, all at the same time. 

She’s telling him that she’s proud of him, that she’ll be proud if he goes out there to fight, but just as proud if he chooses to stay here, because that’s what it is, his choice, and she will love him regardless. MJ can hear the silent ‘we’ every time May says the word ‘I’, and she knows that Peter does, too, because his jaw clenches as he crosses his arms over the ancient NYU hoodie that must have belonged to Ben.

MJ is so busy looking at him and trying to commit every detail of him to memory that she almost misses it when he speaks.

“I should head out,” he’s saying, and for some reason, he’s looking right at her as he says it. “I don’t want to keep Happy waiting too long. He, uh- he probably has other places to be.”

This time, MJ literally has to clench her hand into a fist to keep from reaching out to him. “I’ll walk you downstairs,” she manages to say. “Wouldn’t want you to get jumped by a sixth grader or something.”

Ned huffs a half-laugh and May smiles weakly and Peter looks at MJ with this exasperated fondness that hits her right behind the ribs as part of her realizes for the first time that she might never see that look on his face again. She can feel the panic spreading, the words it pushes up against her lips for fear that she’ll never have another chance to say them, but she tells herself that she doesn’t have time for this right now. She doesn’t, not when Peter is standing there and waiting for her, suddenly looking so young and so determined.

MJ squares her shoulders like she’s the one going into battle, steeling herself as she waits for Peter to say goodbye one last time. This isn’t some ridiculous movie, she reminds herself, as they close the apartment door behind them. There’s no three-paragraph long farewell speech, no profound emotional gesture that will magically ensure that Peter comes back to them after two or three artistic scene transitions. There’s just...this. A walk down the hallway and then three flights of stairs, the same path they’ve taken a hundred times since they became friends.

They take the first flight of stairs in silence, and MJ can feel Peter turning to look at her again and again. She hates that even now it makes her pulse quicken, like her emotions have no sense of proportion at all.

When Peter makes it to the landing, he turns to face her and says, “MJ, I-”

But she doesn’t let him get any further. “No.”

He looks up at her, confusion spreading across his face. “What?”

“No,” she says again, taking a deep breath. “No. We’re not doing this right now.”

“But I-”

“No.”

“I have to-”

“Whatever it is, you’re going to tell me when you get back,” MJ says, her voice firm but her breathing shaky.

That finally shuts him up.

“After you’ve seen May and after you’ve had your dramatic, running-across-the-room-to-hug-each-other reunion with Ned,” she says, and he laughs. “After all that, we’re going to see each other and you’re going to tell me what it is that you want to tell me now, without that punkass Thanos there to get in the way. Okay?”

Peter takes a deep breath and nods. “I’ll be there.”

(It wouldn’t be hard, really, to hear his hesitation-free answer and see the way he’s looking steadily up at her and read between the lines, but she doesn’t. They’ll have time for that.)

“Good,” MJ says, and when Peter opens his arms for a hug, she steps into them without a word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly if I think too hard about how much May and Peter love and depend on each other I have to sit down and collect myself.
> 
> Thanks for reading, and let me know what you thought!


	2. The Girl in the Dress

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ello ello ello! my dearly beloved CrimsonPetrichor and I just could not contain our love for Peter and MJ so of course the more and more we talked about it the more and more fics we came up with and we finally decided to do something about it! enjoy!!

__

_I just wanna keep calling your name, until you come back home - Zayn & Taylor Swift, I Don't Wanna Live Forever _

She would never admit it out loud, especially not to Peter, but sometimes she dreamed about being the girl in the dress. The girl with the dress that fits perfectly; the dress with colors that kiss your skin and make your eyes dance; the dress that catches everyones attention when you move; but most of all the dress that makes the love of your lifes heart stop. 

Tonight, she was supposed to be the girl in the dress, that is until Queens came calling. She stared up at the ceiling thinking about that day a month ago when Peter asked her to prom. He knew better than to make it a big deal, he should have known better than to ask in the first place, yet he could never resist a romantic gesture.

_MJ dabbed the wet rag against the cut on his forehead, it was quite ironic, he hadn’t been swinging around the city like usual, instead he simply forgot to close the cabinet above the sink. She had never laughed so hard as she watched him stumble out of her bathroom clutching his face._

_“I really don’t see how this is funny.” He groaned as she pressed a little to hard against the cut that sat above his left eyebrow; he was seated below her on the floor between her legs._

_“Oh, but it is. This is absolutely hilarious” She replied with a giggle. His head lulled against her thigh as he closed his eyes, they sat in silence till she finished patching him up. He was exhausted, yet between school and being a superhero (she would never admit that either), he still managed to make time for her._

_“Can I ask you something?” his voice was filled with sleep and it made her smile._

_“Anything, spidermonkey”_

_“Will you go to prom with me?”_

_“Oh yes, I will totally grant you the honor of participating in a social experiment turned social norm that only influences the social hierarchy of our high school.” She replied with a deep laugh. She looked down, his eyes were still closed, but he had a smile oh his face._

_“Please? I just want to be Peter and MJ for a night, without the consequences”_

And that was it for her, all the walls, even the ones she hadn’t let him break yet, she let them all fall. The irony of it all was they hadn’t even made it through the door, let alone within 15 feet of the school before he was running off. She couldn’t blame him though, it was his job. 

His phone had started screaming suddenly when May stopped at the red light 3 blocks from the school. She and May both shared a look through the rearview mirror as Peter’s face dropped, she’d seen him sad before, but this look was something new and she couldn’t place it, but she knew it wasn't good. He didn't even have time to apologize before she was telling him to go, putting her hand on his face just to reassure him. 

May was kind enough to let her stay over till Peter resurfaced. MJ thinks May secretly knew how much this meant to her, even though all she did was tease and nag Peter about forcing her to go. 

So here she was laying on his bed, in her biker shorts and one of Peter’s old hoodies, staring at her dress that was hanging on the back of his door. It was a beautiful soft a-line tulle gown, with floral patters embroidered throughout; it came in around the waist giving her just enough definition to highlight the figure she is usually hiding. It looked like she was wearing the earth and she loved it. Two years ago you couldn’t have paid her enough to wear it, but now she was just wishing she had any excuse to put it back on. 

The look on Peter’s face when he first saw her in it made a world of difference, she could only describe it as grateful. It made her feel like she was walking on air, like nothing could stop her, it only helped emphasize her own faith in herself. He was good at that, she was as independent as they came, always making sure people knew she could do anything, and he was always accepting. When he finally worked up the courage to ask her out he told her that her own self confidence was one of his favorite things about her, it stuck with her because even though she did have a lot of confidence in herself, a significant portion was faked so people would leave her alone; but for some reason that kid loved it about her.

She turned over in hopes of curling up and getting some sleep before Peter came home, and she succeeded, for about 15 minutes until her phone started singing Black Magic by Little Mix. Peter said it was one of the songs by them he could tolerate and so she made it his ringtone. She leaned over and grabbed it, her heart starting to race thinking of all the reasons he could be calling, none of them good. 

“Where are you?” She asked, sleep covering her normally assertive tone.

“Roof, meet me.” And with that he hung up leaving her rolling her eyes.

She got up begrudgingly making her way to the door, stopping to eye her dress one more time. She quietly tiptoed out the front door, careful not to alert May, just incase something was wrong with Peter, she didn’t want her worrying. 

She found him sitting on the ledge of the roof, kicking his feet over the edge. He looked so young, and he was, but he had seen so much damage that he was wiser than his years. He turned to look at her, and of course he was sporting a new black eye, one she knew she would have the privilege of icing later. 

“Hey tiger” She says with a smirk. He giggles and shakes his head. He jumped up from his place on the ledge and makes his way over to her with his hands behind his back. He stops just short of her. She eyed him wearily. “What are you up too?”

“Can I have this dance?” He asks confidently as he bowed slightly pulling out a daisy from behind his back. It was her favorite flower, something he could only have known by chance, as she told no one. Ever. Because flowers were romantic, and MJ was the farthest thing from romantic. 

“I would point out that there is no music, but I doubt thats gonna stop you” She replied with a laugh. 

“We don’t need music!”

“There it is.” She giggled at the cliche as she took the flower from his hand. He was quick though and grabbed her pulling her close. With her bare feet they were just that same height, she normally had about and inch on him with shoes. He looped his hands around her waist and hers went around his shoulders as they started to sway. They stayed like that for a while, just swaying in silence, as Queens moved below them.

“I’m sorry.” He said quietly. She pulled back slightly so she could look in his eyes. They were dark, he was clearly upset that Spider-Man had ruined their night. “You didn’t sign up for this”

“Yes I did.” She looked at him with the most serious face she could muster. “I knew exactly what I was getting myself into when i agreed to be with you. And I wouldn’t have it any other way. Your Spider-Man, you keep queens safe, and yet you still make time to make me feel like I’m the only person in your world.” 

She gave him a small peck and he proceeded to bury his face in her shoulder and they started swaying again. 

“I don’t think I could do this without you.” He said, moving away slowly so they came to a stop. “You make this whole thing a lot more bearable. At first, it was hard dealing with all the after stuff, I never had anyone to talk too about anything. Ned didn’t know how to respond to it and May, well I could never put this on her. I know I’m not super open about it all the time, but you make it easier by just letting me feel it all without judgement. I don’t think I would still be Spider-Man without you.”

He was right when he said he wasn’t super open about it, but she let him know the first time he had a panic attack that she was there and that everything he was feeling was valid. He saw trauma everyday, he was allowed to feel, and though it frustrated her sometimes that he tried to keep it all bottled up, even she knew just being there helped. 

She was quiet for a moment, studying his face. His black eye, was really more purple and the way it curved under he cheek bone only accentuated his face structure. He was beautiful, something a lot of people would never see unless they took a moment to study him. He had a face that looked like it was painted by Da Vinci and it was all hers. 

“I love you Peter Parker” 

The smile that erupted on his face sealed the deal for her. This was it. Peter Parker was it for her. He smashed his lips against hers in a happy sloppy kiss and he kept kissing her as she laughed at the smile plastered on his lips. 

“Okay kiddo calm down”

“Nope. Never. Say it again.” He kissed her.

“I love you Peter Parker” And he kissed her again. And again. Until their lips hurt. 

“I love you more than you could ever know Michelle Jones.” 

So they stayed there, on his roof swaying back and forth; him in his suit, her in his sweater, because that was who they were and it was the better than any prom she could have attended, because she knew that no matter what, she would always be there girl in the dress in Peter Parkers eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed!! I ever since that sneaky look MJ gave Peter in homecoming dance scene I've had this in my head and FINALLY its out there. I'm obsessed with them. Send help.
> 
> Actually don't. 
> 
> LOVE U


	3. Besting the Bully

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back to our lovely series! My darling friend CrimsonPetrichor gave me quite a song this week, I wasn't as confident in this story as I would have liked to be BUT I'm still pleased with how it turned out.
> 
> Beware it is short, its meant to be more of a moment in their life.
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

__

“That guy's an asshole and that girl's a bitch” - Sweet as Whole by Sara Bareilles

__

__  


Peter and Michelle were good people, they could even be described as great people, but this? Oh this was very, very bad. 

Ned was long gone. He decided very quickly that he could not be apart of this, for fear of consequences. He didn’t care how “full proof” their plan was, he could not face the impending humiliation that was most definitely coming their way. 

So here they were, just the two of them, looking proudly at their work. It was petty, it truly was, but god they didn’t care. They were allowed this one. The car itself was fine, nothing broken, no REAL damage. Michelle called it a chaotic beauty. All their anger wrapped up, literally the entire car was saurian wrapped, into one splattered mess. Ketchup lined the front windshield, blobs of mayo sat scattered on the outer doors and windows, with mustered strewn delicately all over the trunk, and barbecue sauce sprayed throughout. It was their masterpiece, and they were going to enjoy it for just a little bit longer. 

“I would say we could submit it to a museum, but I think he would actually enjoy that.” Peter said with half a sigh. 

“We could call it ‘VENGEANCE’ its powerful and easily understood.” Michelle replied taking a sarcastic bow. Peter laughed, putting a hand on his chest mockingly. “I guess we should really get going before we get caught. Did you place the camera?”

“Oh yeah, I got three up in those trees so we can get several angles to this impending freak out.” Peter chuckled proudly. He took her hand as they backed away and headed back to his apartment. 

They walked quietly, it was a beautiful night, they were in the suburbs so the stars were actually visible and the air was breezy and light. It was something that gets lost in heaviness of the city, and they were sure to appreciate it when they had the chance. 

“This was such a bad idea.” She was the first to admit it, and it threw him. He was sure he was going to be the one to give in first. “I don’t regret it, but damn this was dumb”

“I mean he deserves it. Flash crossed a line this time.” He really had. They hadn’t taken their relationship public yet, only Ned knew; but somehow Flash found out and soon enough he was on top of a table in the cafeteria screaming it to the whole school. If Peter recalled it correctly, which he did, Flash had not only taken to outing them, but humiliating them as well. 

_“Penis Parker and Book Brat!!! Wow looks like love really does exist if these two losers can find it. Are you guys having sex? Nah you aren’t, probably haven’t even kissed yet! Oh that’ll be a show, do you guys even talk? I’m pretty sure Book Brat only speaks in insults. Damn Parker, do you think of Liz when you guys hang out?”_

__The Liz comment was enough to make Peter’s blood boil, he remembered thinking the moment they left the cafeteria Michelle was going to end it, instead she looked in the eyes and told him they were going to get revenge._ _

__Boy did they ever._ _

__“You know I don’t like Liz anymore right?” He said it quietly, half hoping she wouldn’t hear him. But he would be lying if he said the comment hadn’t bothered him, in fact he hadn’t stopped thinking about it._ _

__“I wouldn’t be with you if I thought you did.” The power and sincerity with which the words left her mouth calmed him instantly. His heart slowed to its regular spider beat and she squeezed his hand just tight enough to cement her point._ _

__It was moments like this he loved the most. She was so confident in herself that it put him at ease, he knew she was never lying or faking anything with him. It was always one hundred percent real. It was something he needed, he thinks she knows it too. If she does, she keeps quiet about it. Ever since they started dating she stopped calling him out on a lot of things; she still does on things like school, homework, and general common sense (which he tends to lack in abundance more frequently than he would like to admit); she picks her battles now and it makes him feel loved, because she cares enough to read him and his anxieties so she can just be there for him. His stress level had subsided significantly since they began to date, and he can’t help but hope he has this forever, because he can’t even imagine about how he would fare without her._ _

\-------

__They arrived back at Peter’s apartment after a while, naturally bee-lining for his computer to see if anything had happened since they left the scene of the crime. They were greeted to the sight of a lifetime, Flash laying in his driveway crying and screaming about how his life was so hard and unfair. They laughed as he rolled around on the pavement throwing a tantrum like a two year old. They would never share this video, they knew better than to stoop down to that level, but they could enjoy the small amount of happiness it gave them, knowing they had bested their bully._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had about 5 or 6 separate conversations about bullies recently so I thought I would let Peter and MJ best Flash in this one. They deserve it. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed it! See you soon with the next one!


	4. she sits beside me like a silhouette

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So a week into this project and goddamnitfrank and I are still going strong, which given the depth of our love for these two should surprise no one. Thank you all for your kudos and kind words on the first two chapters!

_‘She’s driving me crazy, but I’m into it.’_

Harry Styles, “Kiwi”

* * *

Peter isn't really paying much attention as he climbs through his window after patrolling. It's below freezing outside, and it seems like most of the petty criminals in Queens have chosen to walk the straight and narrow rather than risk getting webbed to a wall in the cold for two hours.

All he really wants to do is change out of his suit and into something warm, but he only gets as far as pulling off his mask and pressing the button in the center of his chest before someone says, “Slow down there, Spidey.”

He whirls around, eyes wide, to find Michelle Jones perched on the top bunk of his bed, her chin resting on her hands as she looks down at him. He’s not sure if he’s imagining the beginnings of a smirk around her mouth, but he feels his face heat up all the same.

“MJ- what- I mean, who...?”

He can't even manage the full question, but she still answers it. “We have an English paper, remember? I'm here to make sure you actually write it,” she says, climbing down. “May let me in and said I could wait in here, but then I don't think either of us realized how fast this was going to veer into _Magic Mike_ territory.”

“I- this is not what that was, okay?” Peter sputters. “I don't just... _disrobe_ in front of people without their consent.”

She raises her eyebrows, her expression somewhere between shock and amusement. “Excuse me?”

What is wrong with him? Has he ever spoken to another human before? “No, wait, I- I don’t disrobe in front of people _with_ their consent either. I just meant that I-”

MJ takes pity on him and cuts him off as she crosses to the door. “I’ll wait outside. Just come get me when you're ready.”

* * *

He walks out a few minutes later to find May and MJ in the kitchen.

“That’s the _‘alters where it alteration finds’_ one, right?” May is saying, and Peter has no clue what she’s talking about, but MJ seems to because she nods.

“Exactly -- so it’s that one and two more Shakespeare sonnets, plus some Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and I think a Neruda? They’re all love poems because of Valentine’s Day,” she says, rolling her eyes. “If they wanted a gimmick, they should’ve just given us ‘Ozymandias’ and let us watch Breaking Bad.”

Peter furrows his eyebrows. “Wait, there’s a sonnet about Breaking Bad?”

May turns to him in surprise and he realizes it’s probably a little weird that he’s been standing there in silence for this long. MJ, on the other hand, seems completely unbothered. “Case in point,” she says.

It makes May laugh and MJ smiles like she’s pleased with herself, and suddenly he’s relieved, like maybe he was worried about them not getting along without even realizing it. “So is that for me?” he asks, pointing to a mug of hot chocolate on the counter.

May nods, holding it out to him. “I tried a new recipe but it kind of just made the kitchen smell like potpourri, so I threw in a bunch of marshmallows just to be safe.”

“Pretty solid strategy,” Peter says, grinning as she ruffles his hair. “Thanks, May.”

“Have fun studying,” she replies, before turning to MJ. “Good luck, sweetie. I do not envy you.”

MJ laughs out loud and Peter makes a show of being offended, but he can’t really keep a straight face either. “So,” he jokes as May walks away, “what’s a sonnet, again?”

The look that she levels at him is deeply unimpressed.

* * *

Half an hour in, they have made precisely no progress. Peter flops down across his bed, letting the packet of sonnets fall onto his face. “I give up,” he says into the paper. “I’m too tired to read poetry that already doesn’t make sense.”

He hears MJ put down her notebook and sigh. A second later, the stack of pages has been lifted off his face. He looks to the right to see her face, somehow simultaneously flat and exasperated as she looks down at him. Her curls are lit up by the lamp on his bookshelf, and for a half-second all he can think is that Michelle Jones is really, really beautiful.

“Don’t get so worked up, nerd,” she says. “It’s just poetry. It’s easy.”

Peter sits up, shaking his head. He tries for a second to figure out how to say what he wants to say without whining, because MJ really is trying to help him and it’s not her fault that his brain isn’t making sense of any of this. “It’s easy for you because you already read poetry,” he says, “You actually like it. I can’t even understand it enough to tell if I like it.”

She watches him for a moment, her eyebrows furrowed in that way that makes Peter wonder if maybe she can read his mind a little bit. Then she shrugs, her expression clearing. “You don’t have to understand it. You just need to have a single thought. Literally, one emotion. You can build a whole essay off of that.”

“Okay, but how do I do that?”

“Well, first of all,” she says, holding the packet out to him again, “you can’t hear it in your head. First rule of poetry: it’s meant to be read out loud.”

“Seriously?” Peter asks, but she’s looking at him expectantly and he realizes that answer is yes, seriously. He looks down at the page that she’s flipped to and starts to read. “Sonnet 130: _My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun_. What does that even…? _Coral is far more red than her lips’ red. If snow be white, why then_ \- okay, I’m not an expert, but I’m pretty sure if I wrote someone a love poem like this, I’d get slapped.”

To his surprise, MJ laughs. “Exactly,” she says. “That’s why it’s so great. Shakespeare looks at the love poems that people are writing and he takes all the ‘your singing voice is like a thousand sparrows crying to the stars’ comparisons -- which let’s face it, are never true -- and he flips them around. It’s actually kind of revolutionary.”

He raises his eyebrows. “Really? A straight white guy? Revolutionary?”

She snorts. “Okay, I’ve read enough of Shakespeare’s work to know that that guy was not straight.”

She talks him through it then, how Shakespeare is revolutionary in context if not in absolutes, how some of his plays are, in her words, ‘actually kind of woke’, how classism plays into all the conspiracy theories over whether he even existed in the first place. It’s not like he hears her spiel and suddenly comes out of it enlightened and in love with poetry, but it’s hard not to see why someone might love it when she talks about it the way she does, her eyes lighting up as she explains how Shakespeare’s lasting fame is ‘a giant middle finger to all the dusty white guys who think popular literature is garbage.’

He takes notes while she talks, and this time when he looks back at the sonnet, it actually kind of makes sense. “MJ,” he says, beaming at her, “you’re my hero.”

He thinks there might be a smile on her face for a second, but she gets rid of it before she looks up at him and says, “Don’t get too carried away, Parker. We still have four poems to get through.”

“Great,” he says, flipping the pages of the packet and feeling for the first time like he might actually be able to do this. “Who’s next?”

“Uh, Neruda, I think,” she says, looking down at her notebook.

“So should I try to read this one out loud, too, or-”

“No!” MJ says. When he looks down at her, confused, she just shrugs again. “It’s, uh- it’s the line breaks. They’re weird in this poem, you know, because it was translated from Spanish. I don’t want them to throw you off. Why don’t we skip this one for now?”

Peter agrees because he trusts that MJ knows what she’s doing, and by the time she has to go home, they’ve managed to work through all but the Neruda. It’s only when he and May get back from dropping MJ off that Peter gets a chance to look at the poem.

Even in the solitude of his room, he can feel himself blushing as he reads through it, and he knows he’d have made a fool of himself within the first line if he’d tried to read it out loud with MJ two feet away, looking all soft and pretty in the lamplight. As he starts his calculus homework, he issues a mental thank-you to the universe for letting him dodge that bullet. For some reason, though, he still picks up the packet and reads the poem three or four more times that night. Maybe, he thinks, it’s that ‘one emotion’ thing that MJ was talking about earlier.

But it’s late and he’s tired and he figures he has time to figure that out.

(Which is good, because as it turns out, he needs a lot of it.)

* * *

MJ brings it up again, a full year later, so used to being the one who remembers these little things while other people forget them. She’s talking about an upcoming poetry festival as they wait for her tea to finish steeping, Peter’s chin resting on her shoulder and his arms wrapped around her from behind.

“Hey, remember that time I tried to teach you how to read sonnets out loud and it was a total disaster?” she asks, and he thinks he can actually hear her smile. “You can literally climb skyscrapers but I give you fourteen lines of poetry and suddenly you’re helpless.”

Peter hums noncommittally as she leans back against him, resting her hands on top of his in a patented ‘I’m-mocking-you-because-I-love-you’ gesture. There’s something about the familiarity of it that makes him want to do something grand and ridiculous, like swing from building to building and shout to the whole city about how happy he is.

He doesn't.

Instead, he thinks of the only three lines of poetry that have ever managed to stay in his head, the ones that he seems to understand a lot better now than he did a year ago when he first read them.

“ _I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where_ ,” he says slowly, careful to get the words right. “ _I love you directly, without problems or pride. I love you like this because I don't know any other way to love_.”

She freezes for a second, then starts to turn her head to look at him. “Peter, was that-”

But he just leans in to drop a kiss on her cheek and says, “I think your tea’s done.”

He steps away from her then, fully intending to make a semi-cool exit for once in his life, but she catches him by the hand and pulls him back to her so she can kiss him, and he finds that he’s not so concerned about his exit anymore.

(She blames him later for her tea being too strong, but it’s worth it for the soft smile that plays around the corners of her mouth for the rest of the afternoon.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poems that are referenced here are Shakespeare's Sonnet 116 and Sonnet 130 and "XVII" from Pablo Neruda's _A Hundred Love Sonnets_. Drag me in the comments for being a pretentious lit major if you want but tbh I will go into battle for this concept.
> 
> Thank you for reading, and as ever, let me know what you thought!


	5. this emptiness in my chest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This should have gone up days ago, but this musical prompt damn near killed me and I had to work through about fifty versions of this fic before I found one I remotely liked. (Shoutout to [philthestone](http://archiveofourown.org/users/philthestone/pseuds/philthestone) for reading a million drafts and giving me notes and encouragement while I floundered over writing this.)
> 
> Also: shoutout to this movie and Guardians of the Galaxy 2 for making me super-invested in the MCU again. Every time I think I'm out, found families pull me back in.

 

 _"As long as you're still here/I'm gonna try to keep you near."_  
Troye Sivan, "Gasoline"

* * *

 

It’s 6:34 AM on Saturday when the alert sounds on her phone, and MJ has barely been asleep for three hours.

She’d been granted a 24-hour extension on her Comparative Government final, and by the time she managed to bang out the eight page paper, the birds were already chirping outside her window. It’s a miracle that she manages to hear the beeping in the first place, given that her head is still smooshed between the two pillows she used to cover her ears when the birds just wouldn’t shut up.

She squints at her phone, expecting yet another false alarm, but the alerts are stacking up on her lock screen, one after the other, all of them telling her the same thing. If that wasn’t enough, as soon as she types in her passcode, she’s met with a text from Ned.

_‘They’re back.’_

Five minutes later, she’s down the stairs and out the door, breaking into a run as soon as her boots hit the pavement.

* * *

The thing about being Peter Parker’s two closest friends is that MJ and Ned have gotten pretty good at covering for him. (Okay, well, Ned’s still not great, but he’s better than he was before.) They keep track of their excuses and double check their cover stories with each other and generally try to make sure that no one else can figure out Peter’s secret as easily as MJ did.

When Thanos rears his head and Peter insists on joining the Avengers to fight him, though, it's Tony Stark who does all the work. There’s doctors’ notes and fake medical reports and flexible alibis, and MJ is starting to gain an intimate and unwanted understanding of why it's so difficult to convict rich white guys of crimes they definitely committed.

With no covers to maintain or excuses to track, Ned and MJ are free to study for exams or work on their final projects, which really means that they're free to open up their notebooks and then stare into space, wondering if their best friend is still alive.

It’s why MJ needs that extension in the first place: every time she sits down to write about the political philosophies at play in postcolonial India, she winds up envisioning Peter lying injured on the surface of some desert planet, too far out of her reach to be helped.

She can’t explain this, obviously, when she asks Ms. Jiang for more time on her essay, but somehow she’s met with immediate understanding and an awkward shoulder pat anyway. She takes the win and tries not to think about whether her lack of sleep and shaky hands are really that obvious.

(The night after Peter and the Avengers have gone to space -- how the _fuck_ did she end up at a place in her life where that sentence doesn’t faze her? -- MJ and Ned have a phone conversation at two in the morning. It should be weird, really, because all phone calls are, but it’s comforting to have someone to talk to who’s worried and wide awake for the exact same reasons you are.

“I’m so used to being the guy in the chair,” Ned says quietly. “I hate not being able to help.”

“I miss getting those stupid selfies of him and the buñuelos he buys from that place by the museum whenever he stops a major crime,” MJ says, shut inside her closet to avoid waking up the whole house.

“It’s not stupid; it’s his way of letting us know he’s okay,” Ned says. “Now I guess we just have to wait to find out.”

She hums in agreement. “Either the Avengers come back down here or Thanos does. That's the only way we’ll know.”

There’s a long moment of uneasy silence. Then, simultaneously, they both declare that they can’t just sit here and wait, and then after a minute of talking over each other, they decide to set up their alert system. They work together, flagging up searches for certain keywords and locations across news and social media and also maybe some government weather and air traffic monitoring channels that they technically shouldn't have access to.

There’s a dress that keeps swinging on its hanger to whack her in the face and she’s getting a crick in her neck as she hunches over her laptop to see the keys better, but as MJ follows the keystrokes that Ned narrates, she feels, at least for a second, like maybe she’s doing something to help.)

* * *

She hops off the bus a few blocks from the Parkers’ and heads for a bodega in the hopes that coffee will keep her from passing out once the adrenaline wears off. When she steps through the door, she finds Ned directly in front of her, holding a box of cookies with what looks like Arabic lettering on the front.

“Little early for dessert, isn’t it?” she asks.

He starts a little at her voice, but relaxes when he turns to see her standing there. “They’re for May,” he says with a shrug. “She really likes these, so even if she’s too worried to eat, I can probably get her to have a few.”

There’s a half-second when she wonders how he knows that, but then she remembers that Ned is as much a Parker as he is a Leeds. He moves down towards the candy and she watches him grab a few Snickers bars -- Peter’s favorite, she thinks -- and stack them on top of the box of cookies. He looks over his shoulder at her and says, “No chocolate in space, right?”

She nods at him but doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t seem to mind, continuing to muse over what it must be like off-planet as he pays for his stuff and MJ gets her coffee.

This, she has recently discovered, is kind of her favorite thing about Ned Leeds: even when she’s silent, he talks to her instead of around her, managing to somehow converse in spite of the fact that half of the conversation is just a combination of nods and hums and shrugs.

When she does finally speak, they’re taking the stairs up to the apartment and Ned is wondering aloud how a spaceship landing in upstate New York hasn’t made a bigger splash in the news.

“He’s okay, right?” she blurts, interrupting him. “They- we’d know if he wasn't okay?”

Ned looks at her as they turn down the hall to the Parkers’ door. “If Peter wasn't fine, May would know and she’d already be upstate right now. Besides,” he adds, with a small grin, “do you really think Tony Stark would risk getting killed by May? Again?”

MJ can't help but snort at the mental image of Tony Stark hiding -- if Peter was to be believed -- behind his chair, his desk, and, at one point, Pepper Potts the last time he incurred May’s wrath. “Good point.”

She raises a hand to knock on the door, but it swings open before she actually can. May stands in front of them, already dressed and pulling her hair into a ponytail.

“Come on in, guys,” she says, gesturing with her head and stepping back to let them pass. MJ scrutinizes her for clues, but there are no signs of crying or panic -- just the drumming of her fingers on the door as they enter, that slight impatient twitchiness that seems to have infected all of them. “Are you both okay? Did you get enough sleep? Because this could be a long day.”

When they both lie that they're fine and well-rested, May furrows her eyebrows at them but doesn't call them on it. “Michelle, did you take the bus here alone?” she asks instead. “I could have picked you up on the way.”

“It would have been out of the way, actually,” MJ says, then wonders if her Decathlon training means she’ll never be able to let an incorrect claim go unacknowledged. “Besides, I- I didn't want to wait.”

May looks at MJ for a long moment, her head slightly tilted, before nodding once. If she was going to say anything, it's cut off by all three of their phones going off at the same time.

They all scramble to check their screens, and MJ watches the other two’s shoulders slump with relief before the message comes through on her own phone.

It's a selfie, in typical Peter fashion: there are fading bruises on his cheek and forehead and five Avengers in the background. The text itself reads more like a telegram than anything else, MJ thinks. _‘Just landed. Nothing broken. Tony making us go thru decontamination. See u guys soon.’_

“Thank you, Ernest Hemingway,” MJ says as she types her reply to him, rolling her eyes and making Ned and May laugh.

“I never thought I'd have to cover the ‘I'm back on the planet’ text when I was teaching him his manners, but I think he did okay,” says May, smiling tiredly.

“So are we ready to head out?” Ned asks, looking from May to MJ and back again.

“Yes- yeah, yes, we are,” May says. “Ned, do you want to just grab this bag for me and start heading down?”

He’s out the door before anyone can say anything else, and MJ suspects that the good news means Ned could literally haul a sofa down the stairs right now and he’d barely feel it.

“You go on, too, Michelle. I’ll be out in a second.”

She listens because she doesn't know what else to do with herself, but May catches up with her immediately anyway.

“It’s always freezing at the facility,” she’s saying, “and I don't want you catching a cold. This should help.”

MJ looks over to see her holding out a hoodie, but it's not one of May’s. Pathetic as it is, MJ recognizes the dark gray fabric immediately, and her hand reaches out to take it almost before her brain has processed it.

“Thanks, May,” she says, immediately shrugging it on.

“No problem, honey,” May says, looking at her with a small smile. “Now let's go get Peter before he tries to permanently join that crew of aliens with the talking tree.”

* * *

May is, as always, right: Peter’s hoodie helps.

MJ settles into the backseat of the car and pulls the sweatshirt around her shoulders, falling asleep almost immediately to the sound of Ned and May’s quiet chatter. When she opens her eyes again, they're surrounded by open space and pulling up to a shiny silver building.

The car smells like cinnamon, and she’s confused for a second until she looks over to see a slightly grease-stained paper bag perched on top of a considerably emptier-than-before cookie box.

She can't help but laugh. “Are those buñuelos, Leeds?”

May smiles at her in the rearview mirror and Ned turns to grin at her from the front seat, shrugging. “I guess I kind of missed those stupid selfies, too.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly I'm still on the fence about this one.
> 
> Thanks for reading, and as ever, let me know what you thought!


	6. His Eyes Were Like Diamonds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG. I've had a busy last week and at the last minute decided to completely scrap my original idea. 
> 
> I was super excited about this when I started writing and then got very very nervous once I finished it, it all came out VERY quickly, so please let me know what you think! 
> 
>  
> 
> okay enjoy!

_“When I look into your eyes, I tend to lose my thoughts” Can You Tell - Ra Ra Riot ___

__Oh she was lost; lost beyond control.__

__She decided it wasn’t normal, the intensity they exuded for someone so young was improper. It was almost like she was looking into the eyes of someone who had seen the whole world twice over, good and bad. They were dark brown, resembling the color of dog shit if she was being completely truthful, but to her it was like looking at the finest chocolate the world had to offer, sometimes they were a cold chocolate milkshake, other times it was like looking directly at the cocoa bean. No matter what shade she was getting they always made hungry, for what she would never admit.__

__They sparkled almost too harshly, it contrasted heavily with the faded yellow bruises that usually surrounded his cheek bones. Today was no different, there was just a little extra purple tint left near his right temple, which highlighted the light brown his irises were sporting this hour. The sparkle wasn’t foreign to her, it always reminded her of something, but she could never quite pinpoint exactly what that was. She would play this game with herself, where she would think of things that sparkled just as loudly and compare them to his eyes, somehow she never won.__

__She was hands down the smartest girl in this school, others would disagree, although it was always unanimous that she took the crown for most opinionated. However, being the self appointed smartest person at school was failing her as she couldn’t quite solve this problem. His eyes were nothing new to her, she's spent years searching them and decoding them; since they were little his eyes always told stories, some that even she couldn’t bare.__

__They were essential in the initial fall and it was a hard one. She figured it out on a day exactly like today, they were going over their most basic Chemistry trivia for the decathlon and she noticed his eyes were almost black, telling a new story, one she hadn’t read before. This one was almost too heartbreaking, she had know that his Aunt and Uncle took him in when he was young, but she had only just discovered his Uncles recent death. On this day his eyes were telling her all of his hurt, and it was almost too much for her. His suffering wouldn’t be apparent to others because he was sitting there answering Liz’s questions and laughing along with the rest of the team like nothing was wrong. This was the initial decent, his heart was to kind to put this hurt he had on anyone else, to pure to dim the mood around him even just a little bit, so he hid it in his eyes for only her to read. Sure enough, she was hooked.__

__She continued to fall, accumulating moments like that one, every one with a new story attached and that same loud sparkle she couldn’t quite name. Today they were telling the story of happiness, a break from his duel reality. The war had been won for today, he was settled back into their little Queens community, swinging from building to building and she knew that was his ultimate freedom.__

__She continued to gaze, analyzing the size of his pupils, the gold specks that sometimes filled the outer layer of his iris’, making sure too take note of every little detail because today’s story, while rather unassuming or unimportant, was one she loved looking at and she wanted it cemented in her memory forever.__

__She was suddenly very aware of his mouth (another body part she could go on and on about, but it would probably involve a lot of information that no one other than the two of them needed or wanted to hear), it was moving very quickly and those stunning eyes were looking right at her.__

__And then it struck her, he was talking to her.__

__“What? Sorry I was zoned out.” She stuttered, she had years of practice at this but she could never get it out smoothly, but it didn’t really matter since he was more than aware of her fascination.__

__“It’s your turn.” He replied with a small chuckle.__

__“Oh yeah. Okay. Whats the subject?”__

__“Chemistry.” They both tried hard not to cringe at the irony.__

__“Cool, go for it.”__

__“Diamonds are made up almost entirely of what element?”__

__Her whole world stopped the minute the words left his mouth. It was the answer she had been looking for all along, it was always right in front of her. The most obvious thing in the entire world, the first answer on google, and the thing her mother wears on her left ring finger.__

__“MJ?”__

__“Carbon” She shook her head in frustration that she hadn’t figured it out sooner, but she did it with a big smile on her face, because it only made todays story all the more special.__

__Because on this desperately bland Monday afternoon, she discovered that his eyes were like diamonds.__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you liked that!!!! It came completely out of left field for me but, I had to get it out. Let me know what you think!


End file.
